Over the next week or two, I want to share a few things with all of you.  Today is part one!  Part two will be what this work season will look like for me and part three will be my future plans.  There isn’t any earth shattering news in these blogs, but it is so important to me to keep everyone informed! This post will be the most intimate and personal one.  This is something I have thought long and hard about in my almost 37 years and there are some things I want to say and explain.

So here I am.  Almost 37, happier than ever, in a healthy and loving relationship, a successful business owner and having my first baby.  My life has been filled with a million twists and turns and in the weirdest way I always knew I would be here but at the same time could have never imagined this exact life.  My journey to this moment has been shared with so many of my clients.  I have developed a close and personal relationship with so many of you.  I have been told for ten years that being a mother may or may not be in my cards for a laundry list of reasons.  My story isn’t made for being written and blasted on the internet, but if we have spent time together as clients or a friend, you likely know the details.

Announcing my pregnancy was a tough decision for me. I felt that I owed it to the people who have trusted me to share and document their stories over the years.  I felt I deserve that moment of joy of telling the world.  I also have compassion for the women whose heart sank when they saw yet another pregnancy anouncement on social media.  I don’t need to know your name or your story, but know that I see you. Know that you are not alone and that my heart is hurting for you while being full of joy in my own life. I never was one to experience the jealousy many women who don’t have children but want them go through.  I always had faith it would happen when it was supposed to. There were two times I felt anger and jealousy – both were times people I felt weren’t fit to be parents became pregnant.  I know I shouldn’t be judging, but when people struggle to stay clean and out of jail get pregnant by sneezing, we all have opinions.  We all have bad days where we let emotion take control. Even in those times I realized I wasn’t angry with them, I was just upset that my timeline wasn’t working as I thought it should. If your heart is heavy reading this – know that you aren’t alone.  That the worlds most annoying advice is true: IT WILL HAPPEN WHEN IT IS SUPPOSED TO. I promise.

Years ago a friend whom I have since distanced myself from said to me “You can’t know love, you aren’t a mother”.  That was honestly one of the most hurtful things that have ever been said to me. I am confident she didn’t mean it to be.  In fact, Im sure she has zero recollection of saying it.  I was never obsessed with being a mom.  I knew I wanted children, I knew it was in my cards.  I also knew I needed to wait and it would happen. When that friend made that comment it tore me to shreds on the inside.  I knew love.  I knew love in all the ways that  a human could outside of creating a tiny person. It wasn’t my choice, it was simply how life worked out. When the comment was made it honestly took my breath away. How could someone say something so mean and not ever realize it?  There are many other conversations and situations in my personal life I don’t want to share on the internet, but this was not the first or the last time a stranger or someone close to me would make me feel terrible (on purpose or on accident) because I wan’t a mother by the time society expected me to be.

Over the years, as I reflected on the comments made to me about having a child and the feelings and judgements that came with it, I learned a few things.

1. Having faith and knowing something to be true is enough. There is a greater plan we have no control of. It always works out. Just because it doesn’t happen on the timeline we expect or in the manner we dreamed of does not diminish our dreams and goals,  They turn out better than what we ever planned.
2. The people who have made rude comments about me not having children – I realize now that they are all saying things to cover the misery in their own life. All the smiles on social media and captions proclaiming happiness can’t cover up the truth.  These people are truly unhappy in their souls.  Although they threw stones at me, I am choosing to have genuine compassion and send them love and light. I choose to learn from their comments and speak with more thought and compassion to others. I hope today is the day they wake up and their soul feels light and free.
3. Waiting until you are in your late 30s to have children used to be taboo.  Now it is the new normal. If you want to have children, go back to school or start a new business, now is always the right time.  Stop living in the idea of what things can be.  YOU GOT THIS.  Whatever this is, you are more than capable. I promise.

Being a business owner, life partner and a mom is going to be a tough balancing act, but we are up for the challenge. Dylan and I are excited (and nervous!) to enter this new journey together. I don’t talk about my personal life often, but I am so happy he is the man my little gal will call Dad.  I am so lucky that my family and his are filled with joy to welcome this baby girl into our worlds.   She is already surrounded by love, grandparents who adore her and some pretty awesome aunts and uncles!

 

Thank you to Melanie Cassie for capturing when I got to tell my parents they would be grandparents.  It is appreciated! I was 9 weeks here and looking like I ate a burrito, not quite pregnant yet.  I wrote this blog in May and now at 17 weeks, I absolutely look pregnant!